The Girl On Legare Street

by Karen White

  “Can we see the painting?” I asked, moving forward, and somehow missed a step. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t see where to put my foot on the floor; it was more like the floor wasn’t staying where it should be.

  Mr. McGowan topped off my glass before leading us into the dining room. The smell of rotten fish was stronger in there, and I took another deep sip of my brandy to fortify myself. I was already feeling warmer and more confident, and only a little bit shaky on my feet. I looked up at Jack to see if he’d noticed anything, but he was focused on the painting between the two front windows.

  This portrait, while obviously painted by a different artist than the portrait of the two girls, was eerily similar. The subject of the painting, another young girl who appeared to be a little older than the girls in the first painting, was staring out of the canvas. She was long and lean and standing by an upholstered chair in an indistinct room. Her face and expression were unremarkable, although her coloring, the shape of her mouth, and the way her eyes tilted up at the corners made me think of the taller girl in the other painting. There was nothing memorable about this painting at all except for the heart-shaped locket around her neck, which bore the inscribed initial A.

  I remembered the glasses I’d left behind in my purse in the car and cursed under my breath. At least I’d thought it was under my breath until I saw both Jack and Mr. McGowan look at me oddly. “Sorry,” I murmured, the word quickly followed by a little hiccup. “Excuse me,” I said, my hand over my mouth as I swallowed back a second one before taking another gulp of my brandy. I was completely warm now and would have forgotten all about falling in the puddle if my wet hair wasn’t stuck to my face and my stockinged feet didn’t squish with each step I took.

  I was relaxed, too, in a way I rarely let myself be. So relaxed that when I felt the cold finger touch the back of my arm, I didn’t jerk away. It was as if I almost believed that I could be stronger than it was.

  Jack stepped closer to the painting and flipped open his phone to examine the picture he’d taken the previous day. “The locket appears to be identical to the other two. Right down to the font used for the engraving and the design that goes around the heart-shaped face.” He turned to Mr. McGowan. “What do you know about this painting?”

  The older man took a sip of his brandy. “Not much. It was here when my father purchased the house back in the thirties. The family that lived here for about a hundred and fifty years before we bought it was originally from somewhere up north. New England, I recall. My wife discovered that from a box of letters she found in the attic. Big family, too. According to the letters, they were always asking for relatives to come down to visit, or to come help them with the farm. Must have been a wealthy family, too, because they sent a lot of money up north. Came across tough times during the Depression, though, which is how my family came to own the property.”

  I stood and stared at the girl’s hands while nursing my brandy and wondered hazily what seemed so familiar about them. I knew there were questions I should be asking, but my tongue seemed to be nestled into a corner of my mouth where it didn’t want to be disturbed. Jack kept glancing at me as if wondering why I was so silent, but I held my wobbling finger to my lips to show him that I had to be quiet, if only to hear my name whispered again into my ear by the same voice I’d heard before. Each time I heard it, I took another sip of brandy until even my fear disappeared into a locked box for which I’d conveniently lost the key.

  Jack put his arm around my shoulders but I didn’t have the energy to protest, especially since I realized I’d been leaning and most likely would have keeled over if it hadn’t been for Jack keeping me vertical. “Do you remember the family’s name?”

  Mr. McGowan shook his head. “Not offhand. My wife might know. Or we could certainly find out by going through the letters again. Either way, you’ll have to wait until she gets back next week. She has a filing system that I’m not allowed near.” He chuckled. “You know how some women are. She files everything. Even my socks are filed in alphabetical order by color.”

  “How very odd,” said Jack. “Must be difficult to live with sometimes.”

  I went to elbow him in the ribs, but my elbow missed and I struck air instead, causing me to twist to the left in an odd and outdated dance move. Jack put his arm around my shoulders again and pulled me so close that I couldn’t move and didn’t really need to work that hard to stand up. He leaned into my ear and whispered, “That’s what happens when you listen to too much ABBA.”

  My left hand was trapped and I couldn’t swat at him, so I took another sip of brandy instead.

  I tried to focus my eyes again on the floating picture in front of me, trying to see whatever it was I was supposed to. In the calm part of my brain that was numbed by the brandy and nicely insulated from my fear, I knew that the thing whispering my name wanted to hurt me and the reason why had something to do with the portrait in front of me.

  I turned to Jack to ask him to take a picture but couldn’t remember the exact words I needed. Lifting my index finger from my brandy glass, I made a motion of clicking the shutter button. Catching on quickly, he dug into his pocket and pulled out the digital camera I’d given him to hold. After first leading me to a wall to lean against, he took several pictures from different angles, including one close-up of the artist’s signature.

  After pocketing the camera and peeling me off of the wall, he turned to Mr. McGowan. “You’ve been very generous with your time, sir, so we won’t take up any more of it.” He offered his hand and they shook. “And if it’s all right with you, I’d like to call your wife when she returns to see what she might know.”

  Our host led us back into the foyer. “Oh, she’d love it. She fancies herself a bit of a genealogist and loves to talk about it. Just make sure you have a nice comfortable seat first before you dial the number.” He chuckled and then thumped Jack on the back and I heard the whoosh of air coming from his lungs.

  As we stood inside the front door I smiled my good-bye to Mr. McGowan, not sure I could pry my tongue from the roof of my mouth. Jack took the beach towel off of my shoulders, then pried the brandy glass out of my hand before handing them back to our host.

  The old man opened the door and stuck his head outside. “Looks like it’s stopped raining, so you won’t get wet getting back to the car. Just watch out for puddles.”

  Jack smiled. “Thanks again, Mr. McGowan.”

  “You’re most welcome, young man.” He pointed to me and winked conspiratorially. “And she’s a keeper, that one. Nice and quiet.”

  Before I could set the facts straight, Jack retrieved our shoes, then hurriedly hustled me out of the house and down the porch steps. He stuffed me into the car, then buckled my seat belt, struggling to reach around me as I attempted to snuggle with the bucket of potatoes he’d put in my lap. As soon as he was finished, I rested my head on top of a large spud and closed my eyes, aware of Jack putting his coat over me and tucking in the edges.

  I must have slept the entire trip home because the next thing I realized I was being thrown over Jack’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carried up the stairs of my house—having no idea how he’d managed to get both of us around Sophie’s scaffolding at the bottom of the staircase. I grunted, trying to show him that I was aware that he was manhandling me without mentioning that I didn’t mind the placement of his hand on my rear end.

  He pulled the bedclothes off of my bed, then slipped me gently onto the mattress and I fell back, ready to sink into blissful sleep again.

  I felt him sliding my shoes off. “You can’t go to sleep yet,” Jack said. “Your clothes are still wet. You need to take them off.”

  “That’s the oldest line in the book,” I mumbled, burying my face in the pillow.

  I felt myself being dragged up by my arm. “And I’ll admit to having used it myself more than once, but this time I’m actually serious. Hang on.”

  He left the bed to go into my adjoining bathroom, and I took the o
pportunity to flop back down on the mattress.

  He returned, holding my thick flannel nightgown and a pair of wool ski socks. “I found these behind the door and something tells me this is what you wear to bed.” He thrust them at me. “Put these on. I’ll turn my head, but let me know if you need any help.”

  I snorted, a little louder than I’d intended, and somehow managed to remove my dress and underclothes with surprisingly little damage to them or any furniture and slipped on my nightgown, leaving Jack the job of putting on my socks because every time I leaned forward to do it I fell over. Then I lay back in my bed and allowed Jack to pull the covers up to my chin.

  He went into the bathroom again and returned with two aspirin, a glass of water, and the wastebasket, which he put by the side of the bed. “You might need this later.” He pushed my hair out of my face and made me take the aspirin. I hazily recalled doing the same thing for my father, and I felt a wave of shame.

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered, staring at him with blurry eyes and feeling like I wanted to cry.

  “Don’t be. It happens. And I’m glad it’s me here to take care of you so don’t worry about it.”

  After placing the glass on a coaster on my bedside table and watching me collapse back onto my pillow, he said, “I’ll be in the guest room with General Lee. I’ll leave our doors open, so if you need me you can just shout.”

  I was about to slip into unconsciousness again when I remembered something I needed to tell him. I grabbed him by the arm to prevent him from leaving. “It was there today. At the house with the painting.”

  “What was there?”

  “That—spirit. The one that’s always been in my mother’s house. The one I felt in my mother’s kitchen when I went there the first time.” I lowered my voice, just in case somebody else might be listening. “I think it followed me.”

  He gave me a questioning look. “I didn’t know it worked that way. Don’t ghosts haunt houses or buildings?”

  I shook my head vigorously on the pillow, feeling my cheeks jostling from the exertion. “They can do whatever they want to. But there’s one thing I’m pretty sure of.” I pulled on both of his arms to get him to lean closer to me. “It wanted to hurt me.”

  His face was close enough to mine that I could smell his cologne and the shampoo he used to wash his hair. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, enjoying the effect it had on all of my extremities. I opened my eyes again to find his dark blue ones very close to mine. Feeling like a giddy schoolgirl again, I said, “You want to know a secret?”

  His eyes flashed with amusement—and with something else I wasn’t sure he wanted me to see.

  I reached up to whisper in his ear. “I like you. I like you a whole lot, but I’m never going to let you know that.” I hiccupped in his ear before I fell back onto the pillow. I had the sneaking suspicion that it might actually have been a burp, but Jack was kind enough not to mention it. “That’s because Sophie once told me to stay away from men who are emotionally unbelievable.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I think that would be ‘emo tionally unavailable,’ Mellie.” His voice was soft with a hint of amusement, and I wondered in what was left of my brain if I’d said anything that he might use against me later.

  I’d already lost the train of our conversation. Not letting him pull back, I said, “I need you to do a favor for me.”

  I watched as his eyes drifted down to my lips before dragging them back up. “What is it?” he asked softly.

  “Don’t let my mother throw me that fortieth-birthday party.”

  Jack gently dislodged a strand of hair from my mouth. “Why not, Mellie? I think she’s trying to find a way to connect with you. And throwing you a party is her way of doing it.” He paused and I felt his warm weight on the edge of the mattress next to me. “Would it be so difficult for you to let her?”

  I shook my head, trying to make him understand the thing that was so clear to me. “Because then everybody would know that I’m old. That I’m a dried-up husk of a woman whose biological clock is running on daylight saving time without a battery.” I stifled another hiccup. “Fifty years ago I’d be called somebody’s eccentric spinster aunt and I’d have to sit on my front porch all day and spit at people who walked by.” I shook my head again briskly, trying to clear it. “I could just wash my face until I can’t breathe.” I looked at his blank expression and realized that I hadn’t understood what I just said, either.

  His lips trembled a little. “Mellie. Firstly, you don’t have any nieces or nephews so you can’t be called anybody’s aunt. Secondly, you’re a beautiful, intelligent, and vibrant woman who doesn’t look a day over thirty, which is a miracle I can attest to because I’ve seen what you eat. You should be proud of who you are and what you’ve accomplished, regardless of your age.” He paused for a moment. “I know your relationship with your mother is difficult right now. But she’s reaching out to you. Maybe you should give her a chance.”

  I blinked slowly, fighting sleep. “What did you say?”

  He took a deep breath. “I said lots. Which part are you asking about?”

  “The part where you said I was beautiful.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “That part.” He chuckled and my whole body vibrated with it. “I said you were beautiful, vibrant, and intelligent. And I might add that if you were also sober and knew we were having this conversation, you would probably have to kill me.”

  I smiled smugly. “You think I’m beautiful.” I frowned, trying to grab a thought that kept floating away. “Aren’t you supposed to kiss me now?” I moved up to touch my lips to his but he pulled back.

  Gently, he disengaged my fingers from his arms. “Mellie, trust me. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that I don’t make a habit of kissing women who are barely conscious. I like them to be fully awake so they remember it in the morning.” He stood and retucked my covers, then surprised me by leaning over and kissing me on my forehead. Then he moved his lips to my ear and whispered, “Just for the record that was almost kiss number three.”

  I listened as his footsteps crossed the floor. Before he reached the door, I said, “Number four, but I’m not counting.”

  I fell asleep listening to him laugh while he walked down the hall toward the guest room, his footsteps lulling me into a dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER 10

  All through my shower the following morning, bits of conversation kept sifting through my consciousness, like recalling a dream. If only it could have been a dream. With dreams, you’re the only witness and you’re free to do whatever your subconscious tells you.You willingly do it in the privacy of your own mind. Unfortunately, judging from the humiliating fragments that kept jumbling inside my brain, everything I’d said and done the previous day had had an audience. I pressed my forehead against the cold tile of the shower to try and stop it from throbbing and wondered if it were possible to fake my own death and move to another continent.

  Moving quietly so as not to awaken Jack in the guest room and actually have to look him in the face, I threw a few essentials into a suitcase and crept down the stairs and through the back door after giving a quick greeting to Mrs. Houlihan and General Lee in the kitchen. I had no intention of moving into my mother’s house before she returned from New York, but I’d hired a cleaning crew to scrub the house from top to bottom after the previous owners had moved out and I needed to be there to let them in. And if I brought a few things over each time I went to the house on Legare, I wouldn’t have to ask Jack for help. It was my plan to never actually have to speak with him again.

  I parked on the street in front of my mother’s house to allow the cleaning people access to the driveway when they arrived and sat for a few minutes to wait for my head to clear and my stomach to stop churning, realizing my unease wasn’t completely due to the previous day’s excess.

  With a fortifying breath, I pulled my bag out of the backseat and made my way inside the house. Despite the DayGlo paint c
olors on the walls and moldings, the house didn’t appear as awful as it had on my previous visits because of the absence of the hideous furniture and accessories.

  I spun in a slow circle, seeing with my newly trained eyes the classic architecture and perfect symmetry of the foyer superimposed on my memories of my grandmother’s house and the happy days I’d spent here as a child. But the clash of colors on the walls brought me quickly out of my reverie and I felt the odd need to reassure the old house that help was on the way. I’d already scheduled an appointment with Sophie to walk through each room to decide on historically accurate color schemes and any reverse remodeling that needed to be done. I wasn’t as sold on the “historically accurate” part as Sophie was, but I did know that any type of color scheme was an improvement to the existing circus-like hues.

  Fishing through my purse, I found two more aspirin. I knew from experience with my father’s hangovers that if I stayed ahead of the headache, I had a much better chance of hanging on to the contents of my stomach. Dropping my purse and bag by the front door, I paused.The kitchen wasn’t far from the foyer, but I was alone and in no mood to face whatever it was that lurked in the house and whose presence I sensed even now.

  “Hello?” I called out, feeling silly, but wanting to alert my soldier that I was there. I listened to the silence, waiting to hear a clang of metal against metal or his booted footfall. I heard nothing, but neither did I hear my name being called by the menacing voice I’d experienced once before and had no desire to experience again.

  Feeling somewhat reassured, I made my way quickly to the kitchen in search of tap water to wash down the aspirin, hesitating briefly in the entrance to make sure the door to the back stairs was closed, just as I’d done as a child.